102-Year-Old Attributes Longevity To Drinking A Beer A Day

We’re all familiar with that old gem—but it’s a little boring isn’t it? Well, what if we swapped out the word “apple”, and replaced it with say, “beer.”

Then we’d have: “a beer a day keeps the doctor away.”

Given everything we know about alcohol’s long-term effects on the human body, that seems like pretty bad advice, doesn’t it? Well, according to a 102-year-old woman from South Carolina, it’s not as bad as it sounds.

Mildred Bowers, who turns 103 this August, attributes her incredible longevity to drinking a cold pint of beer a day—a ritual that has actually been approved by her doctor. This unlikely detail of Bowers’ diet apparently came about after a conversation with some nurses, who didn’t see any harm in the idea. Now, those nurses bring her a cold pint every day at 4:00pm, and then it’s down the hatch.

“Look, there are people who don’t like coffee and people who don’t like tea, but I want everyone to drink what they like,” Bowers told NBC. “Have a beer, doctor’s orders.”

Of course, Bowers is not the first person to sing the praises of alcohol as an elixir for longevity. As AskMen reminds, a woman in New Jersey recently hit the 110-year mark after 70 years of drinking three beers and a shot of whisky every day. Then there’s the recently-deceased Spanish vineyard owner who lived to 107 drinking nothing but wine…

Yet while a recent study did suggest that drinking could increase your lifespan, the science is certainly still shaky on the issue. That said, Bowers’ beer-a-day ritual is an undeniably refreshing break from the diets, supplements and medications that we’re typically told are the keys to longevity.

Tom Taylor is a globetrotting writer currently based in Ottawa, Canada. He covers mixed martial arts for Fightland and Vice Sports, and freelances for a number of other publications. Follow him on Twitter @TomTayMMA.